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Title details for A Fire in My Head by Ben Okri - Available

A Fire in My Head

Poems for the Dawn

by Ben Okri
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From the renowned Booker Prize–winning author, a powerful collection of poems covering topics of the day, such as the refugee crisis, Black Lives Matter protests, and COVID-19.
In our times of crisis
The mind has its powers
 
This book brings together many of Ben Okri’s most acclaimed and politically charged poems.
    “Grenfell Tower, June 2017” was published in the Financial Times less than ten days after the fire, and Okri’s reading of it was played more than six million times on Facebook.
    “Notre-Dame Is Telling Us Something” was first read on BBC Radio 4, in the aftermath of the cathedral’s near destruction. It speaks eloquently of the despair that was felt around the world.
    In “shaved head poem,” Okri writes of the confusion and anxiety felt as the world grappled with a health crisis unprecedented in our times.
    “Breathing the Light” is his response to the events of summer 2020, when a Black man died beneath the knee of a white policeman, a tragedy sparking a movement for change.
    These poems and others, including poems for Ken Saro-Wiwa, Barack Obama, Amnesty International, and more, make this a uniquely powerful collection that blends anger and tenderness with Okri’s inimitable vision.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 28, 2023

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781635423099

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781635423099
      • File size: 4935 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      December 1, 2022

      This new collection from Booker Prize--winning poet/novelist Okri (The Famished Road) engages with pressing social issues and reflects on the power of art and spirit to imagine better worlds. A central preoccupation is how "[t]he world runs ahead while humanity/ Falls behind," and poems directly address the persecution of the Rohingya people, the extremism of Boko Haram, the killing of George Floyd and the resulting outcry, and the fire at London's Grenfell Tower ("In this age of austerity/ the poor die for others' prosperity"). While interspersed with occasional love poems, the work is at its strongest in its straightforward reckoning with global issues and meditations on particular individuals, as in the lament for Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Ogoni environmental activist executed in 1995. "We live in unnatural times/," the poem declares, "and we must make/ them natural again/ with our wailing." Amid outrage and protest, the collection insists on the possibility of change and on a fundamental unity, that "[a]ll culture's shared/ Beneath the realm/ Of sleep and of awakening." VERDICT It's "time to write on the face of the earth/ the value and meaning of every name," Okri writes. Globally engaged, accessible, and relevant.--Amy Dickinson

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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